Hundreds of Area Community Leaders Toast New Concept in Publishing

Matt Sharp, publisher of The Bay City Times, The Saginaw News and The Flint Journal, speaks to celebratory crowd at Bay Valley Resort Hotel.
Visitors point to one of the enlarged editions of past Bay City Times newspaper covers representing the long history of print publishing in the region.

The Bay City Times and The Saginaw News kicked off a new product on Tuesday -- The Great Lakes Bay Edition.

The new publication is a Tuesday-only and newstand-only phenomenon costing 75 cents.

As some of the nation's other newspapers have scrapped daily publication and gone to Internet publishing exclusively, the two local papers have clung to Thursday, Friday and Sunday home delivery.

Now the addition of a jointly-published Tuesday newstand-only newspaper gives the Great Lakes Bay area a unique product. "We're glad to be back on Tuesdays," headlined a story by Executive Editor John Hiner in the first edition.

Publisher Matt Sharp welcomed more than 100 community leaders to a reception/celebration at the Bay Valley Resort Hotel on Tuesday afternoon, lauding the new regional economic/tourism development approach.

"We can't remain parochial anymore, we need to work together," said Sharp, citing Volkswagen's decision not to move production operations to Michigan and instead to locate in Tennessee.

"When VW officials arrived in Tennessee they were greeted by people from the entire region, united in the effort to welcome them there," he said. "When they came to Detroit they ran into conflicts over Cobo Hall and other disputes, so Michigan was out."

People still want a local newspaper, he said, pointing to more than 137 years of print publishing here, represented by huge blow-ups of historic newspaper pages.

Wrote Hiner: "The communities that make up this region genuinely are pulling together in tangible ways to improve the business climate, attract outside investment, create efficiencies for institutions and governments in a tough economy, and bolster social and cultural offerings."

The GLBay Edition has added a Midland reporter, Holly Setter, to support the news we now provide from there, said Hiner. "Those reports won't be limited to Tuesdays," he wrote, "we'll stream news and list events from Midland all week long at mlive.com/midland."
###